A Comparison Between International Trade Law and International Humanitarian Law 

  International law was created and implemented in order to create a more prosperous and peaceful world. However, while some parts of international law are strictly followed and enforced, like international trade law, others, like international humanitarian law, have been proven toothless and ineffective.

  The first international trade laws were expected to be followed to the letter; nations that continued to trade with scofflaw nations risked losing their investments. Because everybody presumably profits from the safe continual trade of goods and capital, nations generally have an ongoing and tangible incentive to comply with international trade laws even when that involves some sacrifice.

  International humanitarian law may be inconsistent with a country's pure economic self-interest in that it assumes that nations will not follow basic human rights. It lays out options for other nations to stop abuses, such as those found in the United Nations Charter.1 Thus, there is a tension between the worthy economic objective of unfettered international commerce and the unquestionable importance of basic human dignity. From the perspective of the potential Good Samaritan nation, both objectives pull in a different direction. After all, domestic economic concerns of a normally free state - jobs, increased wealth, etc. - are commonly seen as inconsistent with the abstract humanitarian objective of freedom for strangers in another country.

International Trade Law

  International trade law is inherently the strongest area of international law for a simple reason: unfettered commerce creates wealth in the long run, therefore serving the presumptive economic interests of all. Free trade has become so important that nations are willing to give up some sovereignty, even to regional economic communities seen as dominated by traditional enemies, for the promise of increased opportunities for economic growth. The prototype group is, of course, the EU with its historically hostile members.

  Today, international trade law has been expanded to include the introduction of regional free-trade zones, that is, a group of countries that agree not to place tariffs on other members' goods and to even subordinate some domestic laws, with the hope of "pursu[ing]…efforts to reduce or abolish obstacles to the exchange of goods and services and current payments and maintain and extend the liberalization of capital movements." 2 The success of the EU has now become a model for NATFA and other free-trade agreements. It is estimated that as of 2000, 60% of world trade, assisted by international agreements such as NAFTA or non-governmental organizations such as the IMF or World Bank, occurred without any tariffs. 3 This tariff-free trade is certainly increasing.

  Most non-Marxist economists, international corporations, and many nations of the world recognize that trade liberalization - free trade - leads participating nations to concentrate on those goods or services that it can produce more efficiently than other nations, more specifically, the principle of comparative advantage. Brigitte Stern, in her chapter on the regulation of globalization, discusses two competing schools of thought in regards to the effects of liberalization.

  The first group, according to Stern, maintains that the inherent efficiency of the global market due to liberalization and deregulation justifies its implementation. The second group, however, argues that the process needs to be regulated to produce a fairer distribution of the anticipated gains of that liberalization. Stern argues that "these gains [from economic globalization and liberalization] are distributed unevenly between different states, as well as inside them." According to adherents of the second theory, equity is important because of the uneven associated costs of globalizations, e.g., some people and communities, at least temporarily, lose jobs while others get cheaper prices and better goods and still get to keep their jobs. Because of this unfair distribution of the profits of liberalization, this second school of thought argues that unregulated economic globalization is not the panacea claimed by the free.

  International trade law is the strongest, most enforced, and most followed part of international law simply because it offers tangible benefits.

International Humanitarian Law

  International humanitarian law is the least-enforced element of international law for the opposite reason: states are under no enforceable or unambiguous obligation to render assistance to the victims of atrocities and, in virtually all cases, domestic concerns and politics discourage such involvement. Cynically, many successful and moralistic nations, assuming that others will accept these global responsibilities, maintain that they do not need to actively participate in humanitarian efforts. This line of reasoning is behind President George W. Bush's insistence that the African Union should send more peacekeeping troops to the ongoing genocide in Darfur in Sudan, instead of American troops, as well as the European refusal to intervene in the slaughter of fellow Europeans - Christian and Muslim - by Europeans in the former Yugoslavia.

  The current international acknowledgement of the necessity for protecting fundamental human rights has created a world full of nations that decry organized mass violations of human dignity but are anxious that someone else acts first; they expect other nations - usually, the U.S. - to act as the world's humanitarian policeman. Most countries find it advantageous to defer to other nations to assume the risks and costs of suppressing mass human right violations. Unless the nation in which these abuses are occurring has vital natural resources, is perceived to be in the vital national interest of an outside state that has the resources and political incentive to act, or unique domestic pressure forces a government to act, nations generally will not intervene. Most countries, like people, are motivated and activated by tangible self-interest, not abstract ideas of humanitarianism. International humanitarian law is weak because barring vital national interests or domestic demands leads to no tangible incentives for a state to intervene.

Conclusion

  International economic law is motivated by the perceived self-interest of the party nations: they assume and believe that free trade and a legal system which will fairly protect the legitimate interests of foreigners will, in the end, create prosperity and political stability at home. This self-interest, compels the party nations to make tough calls: enforcing the economic rights of others, defending domestically the necessity of unequal distribution of benefits and harm, improving their legal, educational and physical structures, and generally allowing foreigners the freedom of roughly equal access to their domestic markets. Because of this tangible self-interest, international trade laws are strictly enforced.

  By contrast, international humanitarian law is not activated by any such "enlightened" self-interest, but rather a modern and generalized impression that we all are our brother's keeper. Yet, there is rarely any domestic incentive to actually act on these good intentions and there are always plenty of domestic concerns that are more immediate, tangible and politically needy. Humanitarian obligations involve the expenditure of limited tax monies and the risk of loss of that country's sons and daughters in generally murky situations in largely unknown places. Moreover, the humanitarian obligation is universal: everybody has the same obligation. And, because everyone has the same abstract, burdensome, risky, and dangerous obligation, no country or group of countries, is compelled to act. There is no incentive for taking action, and no benefit - other than an abstract moral benefit - for putting their nation's sons and daughters at risk. The decision to intervene is frequently based on the happenstance that the intervener's elites perceive some self-interest in intervention.

  International law was intended to plant the seeds of greater ideals of the pursuit of happiness, peace, mutual economic growth by peaceful and open competition, and fundamental human rights. Unfortunately, it has not lived up to this promise for the many victims of human rights violations. Solutions to this problem lie beyond the limited scope of international law. Active assistance, monetary and otherwise, by industrialized nations, reforms of the domestic educational, legal and physical infrastructures, and active restructuring of the governments of developing nations by their own people, are needed to create the prosperous and peaceful world envisioned by international law.

Endnotes

1. Charter of the United Nations, Chapter 7, Article 41. <http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/chapter7.htm>,

2. Convention on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Article 2, Section D. <http://www.oecd.org/document/7/0,2340,en_2649_201185_1915847_119672_1_1_1,00.html>.

3.Stern, Brigtte. "How to Regulate Globalization?" Page 249 in the reader.

Michael Kapp is a political science major at the University of California, Berkeley. As an undergraduate, he has focused on international affairs and intelligence and security issues. After graduation, Michael looks forward to graduate school, where he hopes to expand his understanding of the threats that nations must deal with in the 21st Century.

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